


helios

by clowning



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/F, Super self-indulgent Borderlands AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:27:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clowning/pseuds/clowning
Summary: They're vault hunters, and only that. Until a blonde angel pays them to track down a girl. Then things get intense.(Yes, I am still writing this story, no worries. Life is just busy :3)





	1. she touches down

**Author's Note:**

> soooo... im posting again. school is out, and now that it is, i've got a lot of ideas im cycling through. please bear with me. 
> 
> also, leave a kudos, comment, or both if that's something you dig

They see the girl as they return, covered in more blood than they’d like, sand chaffing in between their toes. Their boots thunk as they trudge up the the steps to Erwin’s office, but come to a stop once they all see her.

She most certainly is not from Pandora. She only has a single revolver hooked in th her belt loop and a fiery conviction in her eyes. Definitely not from Pandora. Mikasa glances back down at her belt. It’s real leather, from what she can tell. Her frame is slim and small, her golden hair catching the harsh sunlight, turning it into a halo above her wide, blue eyes. 

So, not from Promethea either. 

Mikasa, for what feels like the first time in ages, is confused and at a loss. The girl is lost in concentration, brows knitted as she gazes down at her ECHO, looks up at the door to Erwin’s place, and back down again. Mikasa feels Armin gently nudge her with his elbow, tilting his head towards her, but leaving his eyes trained on the small girl. “What do you think she’s here for, ‘Kasa? She doesn’t seems like she’s from around here. Or even came here before now.”

Eren coughs and adjusts his pack on his shoulders, exaggerating the motion of wiping sweat from his brow. 

“Why not just ask her?”

Mikasa and Armin give him a look. It dawns on the two that they’ve been killing in the wasteland for so long that they’ve forgotten that conversation with strangers unrelated to missions or bounties exists. They stand in silence before Eren lets out a huff and makes his way to the girl.

 

 

Her name is Krista and she’s looking for someone. That’s all they’ve managed to get out of her in between bites of stew and stale bread. 

Mikasa can’t stop looking her over. The diner’s low light casts shadows on all of the contours of her edges and soft, unmarred skin. There’s a look in her eyes that Mikasa knows. She’s a hunter, and she can read others well. She looks into Krista’s deep, blue eyes and it feels like she’s gazing at a version of herself.

Krista sets down her worn cutlery and looks back at the trio, thigh to thigh in the opposite booth. She wrings her napkin between her pale fingers. 

“I… “ she ruminates on her choice of words for a moment, brows furrowed. “I feel like I was left behind.”  
Suddenly Mikasa understands.

 

 

She comes out of Erwin’s office looking even more downtrodden about her situation. The three of them have their gear on, armed to the teeth, shields, grenade mods, and ECHO communicators refreshed and securely linked. Krista freezes mid-step after turning from the door, melancholy expression quickly swapped for one of realization. 

She laughs at herself. “I just realized. You’re vault hunters.”

Eren chuckles and Armin twitches, wanting to tell her to keep her voice down before he checks himself in his head. _It’s just Erwin’s office, and he’s the one who hires us._

Eren pops both of his thumbs out and points them to his sides, gesturing to his companions. “The best in the business.”

The fire returns and Krista’s chest puffs up, her shoulders bunching as she steps forward, quick and eager. “Then you can help me?”

“We-” 

“I can pay you.”

Eren, Mikasa, and Armin glance at each other, already thinking about schedules and other missions they have lined up. The Pandoran sun beats down on them, casting shadows and leaving no room for comfort in the wasteland. A breeze whistles through the main street, dirt sifting around their feet. Propaganda plays on the radio, fading in and out with the wind.

Well. She isn’t lying. That puts her up a rung from the rest. 

They still don’t answer. Her words are heavy. 

Krista’s small fists clench, just like her voice shakes. 

“Please. I love her.”

Mikasa speaks first. “We’ll help.”


	2. one step forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The search begins, and Krista does some thinking.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heya! sorry there's such a lag between any kind of updates, friendos. summer is in full swing and i like to sleep a lot lmao. i hope you guys enjoy, and might just leave a kudos and a comment if you're so inclined :)

Pandora’s midday is dry, all sinking hellfire and damnation and punishment. Krista lays on her borrowed cot, singular threadbare blanket kicked down around her ankles, squinting at the sunlight cutting through slats in the window adjacent to her sleeping arrangement. Her heart sinks, her arms empty; a warm back absent from the idle press of her lips. Ymir is not within her grasp, and she feels unbalanced. 

The apartment is quiet, and thus gives Krista time and leeway, to think of why she was left in a lonely bed. She wonders if that is why Ymir ran; the hellfire and punishment. Ymir is a selfish lover, taking what she wants… and she has always wanted Krista. But perhaps she’s wanted too much, however impossible that seems for her. 

Pain wrenches and burrows itself into Krista’s chest, her eyes prick with tears.

Perhaps Ymir just didn’t want her anymore.

It’s hard to pull herself out of the rabbit’s hole she wandered into, but _God_ , does she try. 

She tries to picture the winter they spent alone in her place on Eden 5, a tangle of limbs and kisses the sense of ‘you and me against it all’. Tries to conjure the taste of copper on Ymir’s lips after she split them on a job and Krista patched her back up with more kisses than gauze. Krista squeezes her eyes shut, straining to hear Ymir’s desperate pants as Krista was up to her knuckles inside of her, Ymir’s only sounds morphing into a prayer and promise: “I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Love. 

Krista knew what that meant in her world, her home with Ymir’s palm a constant anchor on her hip. 

But she knows nothing of what it means here, in the hellfire and damnation. 

The air becomes stifling in the apartment, the knot in her throat hot and suffocating. Krista lifts herself, sitting up and swinging her legs over the cot, standing, her torso light and numb. She pulls on her trousers and one of Mikasa’s loaned button-down shirts, a combination of rolling and pushing up on the sleeves to get them to rest above her elbows without sliding back down. She steps into her boots and tries to remember the list of information Armin gave her, saying that he would need it in order to track her ECHO’s last known location. 

She jots down everything she knows in a message to him, IP and all, desperate to make herself useful; desperate to hold Ymir again.

After the message sends, she walks around the apartment, stretching her legs and trying to rid herself of the heavy dread that settled on her heart since Ymir disappeared. She pads into the main living space, a small area that seemed to be a den, kitchenette and dining room crammed together, an old, almost out of commission washing machine shoved into a closet that was in the corner wall, the door missing.

Despite it’s aged look, the space didn’t feel very lived-in. Krista drew the conclusion that it was a direct result of the trio’s occupation as vault hunters. She heard them in the early hours of morning and went to see them off, and to hear another rundown of the plan from Armin.

(“I’ll need her IP and any other details you can give me about her before she left. We’re heading to the Dahl server facility after our other missions, to see if she happened to give any helpful info after she pinged the network.”

“Okay,” was her reply, shakier than she would have liked.

He gently placed a reassuring hand on her shoulder, a small smile pulling at his lips. Eren put an arm around him, flashing a grin followed by a small nod from Mikasa. Eren’s voice was confident where she was not.

“We’ll find her.”)

Krista approached the washer, a little aimless and bored. There was a rod above the machine, adorned with wire hangers and a few fresh sets of clothes. Upon further inspection, she saw another set of clothes, too small to be any of the residents’, pushed to the very end of the rod, keeping them separate from the rest. There was a tear in the sleeve of a henley, and a pair of well-worn jeans sharing a hanger. 

Someone else’s, then?

It was the most reasonable thing to assume.

She went on ahead in the small living space, drinking in a dangerous life that seemed to paint itself on the walls.

 

  
Hitch was always stationed at the entrance to the server farm, a sleazy and wolfish grin bleeding onto her face whenever her favourite vault hunters graced her doorstep. Languidly, she sits up in her seat, eyes surveying the three of them, then raking over Mikasa’s built form. She doesn’t look away, but tilts her head as she opens her lips.

“And just how may I be of service to the finest vault hunters on Pandora?”

Her words address the trio, but her eyes never leave Mikasa. Said woman fixes her with a dangerous look that would frighten most, but it only makes her chuckle and heat pool low in her gut. 

Mikasa huffs quietly and takes a small step forward. 

“We’re looking for someone. We need to check the registry.”

Hitch’s eyes flit up to meet hers, the corners crinkled.

“That’s funny. So was your girl, Annie. She was also on the hunt.”


End file.
